


Hate Me If You Want,  But Love Me If You Can

by CobaltStargazer



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Angst, Drug Addiction, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Rain, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-14
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-30 11:30:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3935188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CobaltStargazer/pseuds/CobaltStargazer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The middle of the night is probably not the best time to knock, but Spencer has an apology to make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hate Me If You Want,  But Love Me If You Can

Spencer didn't know if the others were aware that he'd kept in touch with Elle once she'd left. None of them ever talked about her, and he didn't bring up her name to keep the matter private. When you spent almost all of your time with one group of people, keeping some things secret felt vital.

She still lived in the area, and she'd gotten a job doing legwork for a private investigator, and they'd maintained contact over the few months since she'd resigned from the Bureau. They hadn't touched each other since that night in her hotel room, but just having her available to talk to was more than good enough.

He shouldn't have taken those bottles. He knew that now. Tobias had been right, it _did_ ; help, but in the worst way possible. Oblivion might help chase away the dreams, the phantom pains in his feet, but being numb wasn't a real solution. And he was afraid to tell Gideon, to tell Hotch. He couldn't even tell Morgan. He'd tried that once before, with the nightmares, and Morgan told Hotch himself. This was the kind of thing that could get him removed not just from the field, but from the BAU itself.

But he could tell Elle. He had something else to say to her, anyway. 

It was one-thirty-six in the morning, and a light rain was falling. But it was June, and that meant the weather was hot. Spencer had asked Elle once why she hadn't gone back to New York, and she'd said something noncommittal about being tired of frigid winters. He'd let it go, sensing there was some unspoken thing beneath the surface. She lived in an apartment building, and his shoes made hollow noises as he ascended the stairs. He paused as he reached her door, looked at his watch, then glanced behind him. It was late, or was that early, and he hadn't called in advance. She might be with someone. He didn't know what she did when he wasn't around. 

Finally Spencer gathered his wits and knocked lightly, tried to practice not looking _too_ much like a kicked puppy. The needle marks on his arms had yet to really fade, although he knew they would once enough time passed. He'd had bruises on the soles of his feet for days, and when the team had finally found him he'd been worried that he'd have to be carried bodily because he could still feel Tobias - Charles - Raphael - striking his unprotected feet and exhorting him to confess his sins. He'd even removed the thin cushion of his socks. Spencer closed his eyes against the sight of the other man's face as he lay dying. 

Elle wasn't asleep, and she wasn't with anyone. She'd become a bit of a hermit since leaving D.C., and she had a very limited circle of friends thus far. Reid was the only one who'd stayed in touch, and sometimes she was ambivalent about it. She had no hard feelings against him - she'd reserved those for Hotch and Gideon - but she remembered the way he'd looked at her the morning after he'd spent the night in her bed. It wasn't fair to let him think whatever he was thinking. She didn't always know how his mind worked, but in some ways Reid was like her, an emotional creature. She didn't want to ever be the reason he got hurt. 

_You liked it. You liked showing him what to do and how to do it. That little noise he made when you settled on him? You liked that a lot._

_Oh, shut up._

She also looked at her watch when she heard the knock. Her neighbors were big fans of pizza, and more than once the delivery guy had knocked on her door instead of theirs. She didn't have a peephole, but she opened the door just enough to see who it was. The terror that someone would break in had been tamped down to a manageable level by now, Reid's troubled eyes looked at her above the door chain, and before Elle could let herself re-think it, she undid the chain to look at him more fully. 

"I should have called." His hair was damp from the rain, the shoulders of his lightweight jacket dark with water spots. 

His eyes were darker than normal, and he seemed shaky. Elle looked past him, then snagged one of the lapels of his jacket and pulled him inside. 

"I've got coffee." 

In the kitchen, the brunette fixed two cups of coffee, and Spencer took off his jacket and draped it on the back of his chair. He was wearing a sweatshirt despite the heat. She put his cup in front of him, and one of his ever-restless hands grasped it. He wasn't sure of where to look. The coffee was still very hot when he took his first drink of it. 

"How's the new girl working out?" Reid had mentioned they had a new agent, another brunette who'd graduated from Yale. Elle was morbidly curious as to what had brought an Ivy Leaguer to the BAU. One of his shoulders went up and down inside the navy blue sweatshirt, and he still wasn't making eye contact. The former profiler felt a sense of foreboding set up shop in her stomach. Spencer had always been fidgety, but he also tended to babble, and he wasn't babbling now. 

"Spencer?" 

" _I don't want it. I don't want it. Please._ " 

" _It helps. Trust me, I know._ " 

He rolled up one soft cotton sleeve, his usually steady fingers shaking, and he showed her the marks. He'd scrupulously hidden his use from the others, and he was only telling Elle now because it was safe to. Well, that and for the other reason. Steam rose from his still-hot cup of coffee. 

"I was wrong." He said it into the deafening silence, and he could feel Elle's gaze on his exposed arm. It burned like the sun, like the liquid fire of the Dilaudid entering his bloodstream. It had helped, but it also made it worse because once he came down what was bad before was still there. Spencer rubbed at the track marks with the fingers of his other hand, and she grasped his wrist and moved his hand away. 

"I was wrong," he repeated, and in his mind he was watching the light go out in Tobias' eyes, hearing his last words - ' _Do you think I'll get to see my mom again?_ ' "There is no winning, not really. You can survive it, but you don't really win because you can't. I _watched_ him die, and sometimes its like he's just about to round the nearest corner with a needle in his hand." He looked at her, and his mouth trembled even as he tried to narrow it down to a hard line. "I'm sorry," he said in a broken mumble. "I shouldn't have acted as if I knew what I was talking about. I had _no idea_." 

Elle sighed into the space between them, and she tugged the cuff of Spencer's sleeve until she couldn't see the needle marks anymore. If she hadn't entirely made her peace with what had happened to her, she was a lot farther down the path than Spencer was. His journey had just started, and he probably hadn't even stumbled over the first rock he'd find in his way yet. She put her hand on his shoulder, which felt thin inside the bulky sweatshirt. 

"I'm sorry you had to figure it out for yourself," she said with genuine regret, and he gave her a slightly startled look. He'd expected her to be angry, to throw his apology in his face. Looking back on it, he'd felt as if he'd made light of her experience with Garner, and considering what she'd done as a response to it some of that anger must be still lurking somewhere beneath the surface. But her empathy now, that she hadn't tossed him out on his ass, put a lump in his throat, and the craving that was lingering in his system took a back seat to his relief. 

"Are you getting some help? Counseling, NA, whatever? I still have a contact number around here somewhere, I can find it later." 

"I don't want anyone to know. They..." 

"There's a group here. I know what you're worried about, and you're not wrong, they wouldn't stand for it. Especially Hotch." Elle's mouth twisted as she recalled Aaron's words when he tracked her to her father's gravesite. " _You know I don't have any evidence, and you know how quickly I'd arrest you if I did._ " But she wasn't just trying to help out of spite towards her former boss. Her hand had slipped down to Spencer's wrist, then to the back of his hand, which she covered. 

"I want you to be okay. Just because I'm not around all the time anymore, that doesn't mean I don't care about you. You _matter_ to me, Spencer Reid." 

He gave her another look, and this one was less startled and more something else. A combination of vulnerable and knowing, and Elle looked down at their hands, which were still touching. Maybe she'd noticed that he wasn't wearing his glasses before this, maybe she hadn't. Their coffee was getting cold. "Well....you do." 

He'd been reflecting on the way she'd looked when she was coming - when he was making her come - and he heard an undercurrent of Something in her voice, something that was probably left unaddressed right now. He was messed up and she was probably not all the way back to herself yet, and that was okay. His eyes warmed from within, losing the lost expression they'd had when he'd first arrived, but his smile was still a little hesitant. 

"I thought you'd hate me." 

"Not possible." 

Her chair scraped backwards, and she looked at the wall clock. Three-ten. "You can sleep on the couch or with me in the bed. Its too late for you to be on the road, and I can cook you breakfast in the morning. I'm guessing you've got clothes in the car." 

Spencer nodded, and he wasn't presuming or assuming anything. Whatever had happened before, he wasn't entitled to anything from her unless she offered it first. "My go-bag's in the trunk," he confirmed, and she smiled as he stood up. "That's what I thought. You've always been the prepared sort." 

Elle took a fast shower, listening to Spencer puttering around as she dressed for bed. If she was thinking anything, it was just that she was glad that he was here, and that he'd come to her. Maybe it was only what he'd recently been through, but he seemed less shy, less awkward. Was it weird that she'd offered him half of the bed? He probably would have said so if it had been, right? She looked at herself in the mirror, let out a breath. 

The rain had let up enough that he'd been able to get to his car and back without getting drenched, and he put on the pajama bottoms from his go-bag in the bedroom before she emerged from the bathroom. The bed was neatly made, and when he slipped under the covers he smelled detergent, a clean smell. The bed was big enough that they could both sleep comfortably without getting in each other's space too much. Spencer closed his eyes. 

Elle studied the shape of his body under the sheet from the doorway, then joined him in the bed. "You let your hair grow out," he said once she'd clicked the light off, and she replied, "Yeah. I decided I didn't like it short. D'you like it?" 

"Yes. Yes, it suits your face." 

A pause, then - "When did you stop wearing your glasses all the time?" 

"Switched them out for contacts." 

The silence held, and eventually Spencer said, "Elle?" 

"Yeah?" 

He was lying on his back, and his hand brushed her forearm. "Thank you." 

And she wanted to say he was welcome, but there were suddenly tears in her eyes and she didn't want him to hear her voice crack. As much as she had lost by walking away from the job, she had gained a true friend in Spencer. Her shoulders tightened. 

He took her silence for at least slight annoyance, a conditioned response, and he hesitantly turned towards her in the dark. "Can I...can I kiss you good night, at least?" 

She'd never been more aware of her body as she was when she rolled onto her other side, and later she was pretty sure he meant to kiss her cheek. But somehow his mouth found hers despite the darkness, and his fingers skated down the outside of her thigh. A tentative gesture, but it put a knot of tension in her stomach. His hand paused when it reached the bend of her knee. 

"I mean it. Thank you." 

He rolled back to his side of the bed, and she lay there for a minute with her eyes closed before scooting towards him. He made a surprised noise at first, but this time it took him less time to get used to the shape of her mouth against his. And then _she_ moved back to her space on the mattress, and the silence was both companionable and a little tense, but in a good way. 

You're welcome, Spencer." Elle's voice was steady now, and after a second, she asked, "Do you want bacon or sausage with your breakfast?" 


End file.
